


fate is a funny thing

by dons (zhangsyixing)



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Fate, Fluff, M/M, oh i also mentioned yuta's younger and older sisters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-02
Updated: 2018-05-02
Packaged: 2019-05-01 08:23:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14516304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zhangsyixing/pseuds/dons
Summary: Yuta has never believed in fate. It's such a silly thing to believe in after all.





	fate is a funny thing

**Author's Note:**

> Hi!! So, this is my first NCT fic??? I'm still trying to get into the flow of the member's personalities so sorry if this doesn't fit them all that well. It's just them being cute anyway, so it doesn't matter that much.
> 
> btw whenever yuta gushes over taeyong, thats me.
> 
> see you at the end!

_present day;_

Yuta has never believed in fate. It’s such a silly thing to believe in, after all. How is he supposed to believe that everything he has done in his life he was fated to do from the start, even before he was born? Things happen because they just do, not because they were meant to. He’ll continue to live his life this way, as well. He doesn’t have time to get caught up in coincidences. Nakamoto Yuta, always level headed and rational. He likes to pride himself in that.

Yuta lays his head down at his desk, listening to the tapping of the keyboards from other cubicles. The white noise hum of the office surrounding him. It could lull him to sleep, if he laid here any longer truthfully. Twenty-six is sneaking up on him and making him feel more like thirty-six. When Yuta rolls his head to the side he sees Sicheng poking his head over the wall of his cubicle looking down at him.

“Why are you looking at me like I have three heads and a tail?” He mumbles and hears his coworker’s springy laugh. From this angle Yuta can only see Sicheng’s eyes, but he knows his small mouth is pulled into a toothy grin.

“I’m not, you just look exhausted.” Sicheng shrugs like it’s nothing new. Truthfully, it’s not. Work has been sucking the life out of Yuta for the past two weeks with impossible deadlines and cranky bosses. “You should go home earlier tonight. Like, now?”

Yuta rolls his eyes and lifts his head from his arms. That’s a ridiculous suggestion. In what world would his boss ever let him leave early? Yuta grabs his computer mouse and wakes his darkened screen, intending to get back to his work, but Sicheng is still there staring at him.

“That’s a real good joke, Sicheng, but you know I can’t.”

The younger sighs and leans forward, draping his long arms over the walls of the cubicle and nearly knocking over Yuta’s pencil cup. Yuta looks up at him with the most unimpressed look he can muster.

“Look, Mr. Kim isn’t even here today, and I can cover for you. You look like you need seven years of sleep. And plus, it’s Friday, so you’re really not hurting anything by leaving early.”

Yuta rolls his head back on his shoulders, contemplating Sicheng’s suggestion. Really, he’s not wrong. He wouldn’t be hurting anyone by going home early. He sighs softly and sits back up, resting his hands on his desk.

“Sicheng, you make a good point,” Yuta says as he logs out of his computer and shuts it off. He grabs his bag from under his desk and slings it over his shoulder. “You may be a genius.”

“Honestly, I thought it would take more convincing.” Sicheng shrugs with a smile and sits back down, content with his work. “See ya on Monday.”

Yuta takes his jacket off the back of his chair and walks out of the building as quickly as he can. He doesn’t want to be stopped and sucked back into work like he knows he will be. He’s already daydreaming of falling into his bed and going to sleep until Taeyong gets home as he walks to his car in the parking lot. He turns the key to start his car as he things about what they’ll have for dinner that night, takeout sounds pretty good.

His and Taeyong’s bed welcomes him like a warm hug as he falls into the tangle of blankets left unmade this morning. Yuta buries his face into the pillow and sighs softly, it smells like Taeyong’s shampoo. It reminds him that they’re almost out of conditioner but he’s too comfortable to move and make a reminder on his phone. Taeyong will remember, though. He always remembers the stuff that Yuta forgets.

Yuta hugs the pillow and sighs softly watching the dust float in the sunlight streaming in through their window. If Taeyong was home, he’d point it out and say that it looks like fairy dust. Yuta smiles at the thought. Taeyong is the best.

He lays there, and lays there, and lays there and doesn’t fall asleep. Yuta rolled over to his side of the bed, laid on his stomach, on his back, on his side. Nothing. He stares up at the ceiling from his nest of blankets and lets out a long-suffering sigh, frustrated with the fact that he just can’t seem to fall asleep no matter how tired he is. He should have known. He can never take naps alone and has been this way for as long as he can remember.

Yuta rolls off the bed and stands up and steals one of Taeyong’s already too big hoodies from their closet to throw on. The lingering scent of Taeyong’s cologne and their laundry soap fill his head and makes him smile. Just as he’s about to step away he notices a water stained box on the top shelf of their closet that wasn’t there before.

“Huh,” Yuta mumbles to himself as he reaches for the box and takes it back to the bed with him. The box doesn’t have any writing on it, so he decides to open it; it turns out to be filled with old blurry pictures. The one on top has only the back of someone standing on a street, so Yuta flips it over in hopes there’s a description written. He lucks out when he sees writing in the bottom righthand corner of the picture.

The black ink reads: Japan 2009.

 

_May 2009;_

“Don’t you think you’re being kind of a spoil sport?” Taeyong asks as he pulls his bag over his shoulders and steps off the bus behind Doyoung, Taeil right behind him in line. “I mean, we’re in Japan after all.”

“It’s still for school, though. Even if it’s an end of the year trip,” Taeil sighs and attempts to fix his hair as another gust of wind wraps around them. Doyoung zips jacket up and nods, agreeing with Taeil for the first time in history. Taeyong rolls his eyes at his friends and follows the rest of his classmates, the three of them hanging at the back of the group.

“Taeyong is just excited because he’s on a trip without his sister,” Doyoung chuckles, making Taeyong roll his eyes again.

“You’d be happy, too! She’s so awful to me!”

Taeil throws his arm over Taeyong’s shoulders, laughing loudly in his ear and Taeyong shoves him away with a small huff. Taeil is barely older than he is, and he could still kick his ass, probably. Another gust of wind blows through their group making the girls ahead of them complain and Doyoung mutter under his breath about how he should’ve brought a warmer jacket.

Sure, they’re there for a school trip and they have to document…Taeyong can’t remember but he knows Doyoung will so it’s not important, but he’s planning on enjoying time without his family. An almost sixteen-year-old doesn’t ever get that. He’s going to live it up, as much as he can on a school trip, with his best friends and not let them spoil it for him.

They reach Nara Park shortly and Taeyong is immediately surrounded by deer. They’re nosing at his backpack, trying to eat the snacks he packed for today. They bleat until he finally gives in, with pressure from his friends of course, and hands over carrots his mom gave him he wasn’t intending on eating anyway.

Taeyong takes out the camera his mom sent with him as well and the three of them take turn taking pictures with the deer. All of the pictures that Taeil takes end up blurry and Doyoung keeps complaining that because of him they won’t have any decent pictures to look at when they’re older.

“Come on,” Taeyong grumbles as he pulls at Doyoung and Taeil’s arms towards a bench shaded by a tree right behind it. They get one of their classmates to take a picture of them, Taeyong sitting in between the two with his arms over their shoulders and a smile from ear to ear. Beyond the tree there’s a field filled with deer and people talking amongst themselves or feeding the animals.

It’s quite peaceful here and Taeyong kind of wishes that he had something like this back in Seoul. At the same time, he doesn’t mind being lulled to sleep by the honking of horns below his bedroom window. Doyoung pulls him out of his thoughts as he drags him and Taeil out of the park towards a museum down the road where the class is meant to go next.

A few deer linger around the entrance of the building, but none of them bother Taeyong and his friends as they eat their food quickly. Taeyong watches as people walk around the courtyard in front of the museum, taking pictures of the structure and themselves. A boy around his age on the opposite end of the yard laughs loudly with a girl as she holds out her camera to take a picture of them.

“Come on, your mom will kill us if we don’t take more pictures,” Doyoung says with a mouth full of food as he pulls Taeyong from his seat towards the center of the courtyard. Taeil brushes off his hands as he snaps pictures of Taeyong and Doyoung doing silly poses. In the last one Taeyong jumps on Doyoung’s back and makes sure Taeil gets a wider angle of the building behind them before switching places with Taeil. It should appease his mom enough, and Taeyong won’t lie, he’s glad to have pictures of his friends from this trip.

 

_February 2015;_

“No, Ten, I’m positive I know what it’s called,” Yuta sighs as he holds the phone to his ear and hugs his free hand to his chest, trying to warm himself up. Why is it always so damn cold in the winter? “You don’t need to tell me a billion times.”

Ten grumbles on the other end of the line, “If you get the wrong thing for Johnny he’s going to have the worst birthday ever.” Yuta rolls his eyes and looks up at the signs of the business above his head, making sure he doesn’t pass the one he’s looking for. “I’m going to have the best present for him, anyway, but still. Don’t fuck it up.”

“I won’t, stop badgering me. I’m twenty-two years old for crying out loud.”

“Fine, don’t make a fool of yourself, either,” Ten says with a laugh before he says goodbye and hangs up. Yuta pockets his phone and looks up again at the blocky hangul of the sign for the shop he’s about to enter. The one that Ten told him the name of at least a billion times because he apparently ‘never remembers anything’ or something like that.

The bell chimes above his head as he enters, shivering at the drastic change of temperature. He stomps the snow off his shoes on the rug at the entrance of the door and looks over to the empty counter where he was hoping there would be an employee to help him. Yuta sighs to himself and makes his way over to the wall that’s lined with boxes filled with vinyls. He has no idea what he’s looking for, he totally lied to Ten so he’d stop nagging in his ear. Does Johnny even have a record player? Yuta is sure he’s never seen one in his apartment before.

He sifts through the records, barely looking at the covers in case he passes the one he’s looking for and waits for an employee to show up. There’s no way he’s going to find it on his own. Yuta hums to himself under his breath as he wanders away from the vinyls and moves towards the smaller versions. He picks one up with a frown and flips it over.

“Why is it so small…” Yuta mumbles to himself as he glances over the English titles of the songs.

“It’s a 45,” A voice says from behind him, making Yuta jump and set the record down quickly. “It’s called that because of the playback speed.”

Yuta turns around to see a boy his age lugging around a huge box filled with vinyls. He walks along the row behind Yuta and slots random records into spots. Yuta honestly sees no clear method to the madness. He hikes the box up with a grunt as it’s starting to slip down on his leg. His features are sharp yet soft at the same time, and his hair looks damaged beyond repair, but Yuta can’t get past how pretty his mouth is. He’s not here to check out employees, though.

“Hey, do you mind holding this?” The guy looks down at the box in his hands then back up to Yuta with hopeful eyes. Yuta holds out his arms and he hands over the box, which is a lot heavier than Yuta expected. “They’re small because they usually only have one or two songs on them, so they don’t need to be as big as regular vinyls.”

“Oh,” Yuta replies as he follows the guy around the store as he picks out records to slot into cubbies. After following him around for at least fifteen minutes he’s starting to feel like a puppy instead of a customer. He can’t help but notice how slim the guy is, he’s not really that tall but his legs seem to be miles long. He’s definitely not checking out the guy who’s supposed to be helping him. “So, I was here looking for a record for my friend?”

“Mm?” He mumbles as they walk towards the front of the store. He pats the counter, motioning for Yuta to set the box on it even though there’s still a few records left in the box. “These one’s are rare, and we keep them behind the counter, see the red dot on it?”

Yuta nods as his eyes follow the guy’s finger to a red dot sticker in the upper corner of the sleeve. “Oh, that’s cool. Do you have a lot of them?”

“That wouldn’t make them rare, now would it?” He asks with a smirk and Yuta feels his ears heat up. The whole time he’s been here, Yuta hasn’t been able to read the guy’s nametag, so he still has no idea what his name is, which is just as embarrassing as asking obvious questions. The guy pulls the box off the counter to set on the floor beside him and props his chin up in the palm of his hand as he leans towards Yuta across the counter. “So, you’re looking for a record for your friend? Special occasion?”

“Um, yeah,” Yuta says trying not to stare at how absolutely otherworldly this guy looks. He definitely should not be working in a dingy record store, he should be a model, or something. “It’s his birthday this weekend.”

“What artists are you looking for?” The guy pushes himself off the counter and walks back towards where Yuta was before. “We have it all.”

“Um… Do you have a cold play?” Yuta asks looking over the employee’s shoulder at the records he’s sifting through. The guy snorts and turns around, making Yuta take a step backwards so he’s not in his personal space.

“You mean Coldplay vinyls?”

“Yeah, a cold play.”

“You really don’t know anything about music, do you?”

Yuta frowns a little and shakes his head. “That’s not true, I listen to music all the time.”

“Like what? Girl groups? Boy groups? Stuff I would never sell in this store?” The guy crosses his arms over his chest and raises an eyebrow at Yuta. He feels like he’s being sized up for something, and he’s not so fond of it at the moment.

“Yes, I listen to those, but I mostly listen to rock music. I don’t like to limit myself just to one thing,” Yuta says with a shrug and the guy shakes his head, turning back to the cubbies filled with vinyls and starts sifting through them.

“You listen to rock, but you’ve never heard of Coldplay,” he mutters as he pulls out a black sleeve with an orange globe on the front. “I’m going to assume that your friend probably has their latest release, the one with wings on it?”

“Yes? I think, I can’t remember,” Yuta says slowly, searching his mind for any memory of a winged album. He thinks that Johnny might have it on CD but he’s not positive. “He probably does.”

“Great friend you are,” the guy chuckles and hands Yuta the vinyl with a globe on the front and goes over to where the smaller 45s, that Yuta just learned about, are. He immediately takes out another record, this sleeve is decorated with small colorful squares on a dark background. “That one in your hand is from 2000, and this one is from 2005, he will probably like both of them.”

Yuta follows him back up to the counter so he can pay for the records, he takes the one Yuta is holding from his hands and switches it with one from behind the counter and Yuta frowns.

“Why…?”

“My treat,” the guy says with a wink that definitely doesn’t make Yuta’s ears get hot again. “It’s a limited edition, so he’ll be extra happy, and you’ll have the best present.”

The employee excuses himself to the back so he can grab bags for Yuta’s purchase as Yuta fishes his wallet out of his pocket. When he comes back, he slips the records into plastic bags and Yuta is almost certain he was given a discount, but he doesn’t want to ask just in case.

When Yuta gets home he pulls Jungwoo from his bedroom to help him wrap the presents and sign the birthday card he bought at a convenience store on the way home. He protests for about fifteen seconds before he tells his boyfriend that Yuta has only seen pictures of that he has to hang up their Skype call.

“I’m sure you’ve been talking to Doyoung all day, a break won’t hurt,” Yuta says as he pulls Jungwoo down to the floor with him gently and rolls out the wrapping paper.

“No, but we were in the middle of a conversation,” Jungwoo sighs as he places a record in the middle of the paper and grabs a piece of tape.

“Ooh, did I interrupt sexy times?”

Yuta looks up to see Jungwoo face flushed bright red and he can’t help but laugh which earns him a weak shove from the younger. Jungwoo pulls the other record from the bag and makes a small sound of surprise and pulls out a piece of paper along with it. “Oh? What’s this, hyung?”

Yuta grabs the paper from Jungwoo’s hand and flips it over to reveal messy handwriting and a number on the back of a receipt.

The blue ink reads: Text me so I can educate you on good music. – Taeyong

 

_present day;_

“Yuta?” Taeyong calls out as he takes off his coat and throws it on the back of a kitchen chair. “Are you here? I saw your car outside.” He dumps his wallet and keys onto the counter and listens for Yuta’s reply that doesn’t come. Taeyong frowns to himself and grabs a bottle of water from the fridge before going to look for Yuta in the rest of their apartment.

He finds his boyfriend sitting on their bed, surrounded by pictures and his phone tucked between his ear and his shoulder. As he gets closer, Taeyong realizes that a lot of the pictures are from his school trip in 2009 that he brought back from home when he visited last weekend. He was going to have Doyoung and Taeil over so they could look through them after nearly ten years.

“No, Haruna, just get mom to send me a picture from when we went, okay? Just take a picture of the picture to send to me,” Yuta sighs as he switches the phone to his other ear and looks up at Taeyong with a sweet smile, beckoning him over to kiss his forehead. “Yes, that one, thank you. Okay, talk to you soon. Yes, yes. I love you, too. Tell mom and Momoka I miss them. Uh huh, yeah. Bye, Haruna.”

“What picture?” Taeyong asks as he moves pictures out of the way so he can sit next to Yuta, their knees pressed together. Taeyong picks up a picture of Doyoung and Taeil laughing as they feed deer that he took without them knowing.

“You see this one,” Yuta says as he hands the picture of him and Doyoung standing in front of the museum, Taeyong on Doyoung’s back and both of them holding up a peace sign with smiles on their faces. “It’s a cute picture, but look in the background.”

Taeyong holds the picture closer to his face, a small pout on his mouth as he tries to find what Yuta wants him to see. All he sees are random people who were there the same day. “Okay…?”

“Now look at this,” Yuta says a smile obvious in his voice as he hands Taeyong his phone, a picture of him and his older sister pulled up on the screen. It’s the same museum, but that hardly is something to get excited about.

“Yuta, this is really going over my head right now.”

Yuta sighs gently and zooms in on the picture to behind Yuta and his sister to people standing in the background. Taeyong stares at it for a moment and looks back at the picture in his hand of he and Doyoung.

“You see it, right?” Yuta asks as he leans into Taeyong’s side, he sounds so excited and Taeyong is completely at a loss. “Oh my God, Taeyong. It’s you in the background of my picture and I’m in the background of yours.”

“No, that’s impossible,” Taeyong mutters as he looks between the two pictures, now noticing the jacket he was wearing in the background of Yuta’s picture. He lets out a half laugh, and he looks over to Yuta, whose eyes are shining in the setting sun that’s shining through their bedroom window.

He never thought that the silly kid he met at his part time job three years ago had been in his life since 2009. Taeyong took the biggest chance by slipping his number into Yuta’s bag at the record shop when he wasn’t paying attention and it really paid off. He has been trying to tell Yuta that they were fated to meet each other. Doyoung and Jungwoo had met before he and Yuta had met, and ever since then Taeyong had known.

Yuta was meant to be in his life, no matter how long it took for them to meet, Taeyong has always known that Yuta was always his missing piece. Sure, they bicker and fight, but Taeyong cannot imagine having this life with anyone other than Yuta.

“Fate is a funny thing, huh?” Taeyong whispers as he sets down the picture with the others, he’ll look through more of them later. Yuta rolls his eyes at Taeyong and pulls him down onto the bed so he’s lying on top of Yuta completely.

“I guess so, Taeyongie,” Yuta chuckles as he kisses Taeyong’s cheek. “I guess so.”

“I win,” Taeyong smiles and kisses Yuta, holding his cheeks in his hands, squishing them slightly. He’s always been the luckiest guy in the world.

**Author's Note:**

> Hellooooo I hope you enjoyed this omg. I hope to write more soon because I love them. Anyway, if you have any comments or questions on the fic pls feel free to send me a message on cc [here](https://curiouscat.me/zhangyixing) or you can find me on twitter [here](https://twitter.com/tinyieader)
> 
> I hope you have a good day!! Ily all byeeeee!


End file.
